Tallis is one of eight retired doctors on HPAD’s thirteen-person steering group, which he chairs, and also held the influential position of chairman of the Ethics Committee of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) when that organisation went briefly neutral on euthanasia in 2005.

After he had vacated the latter chair, and just before the debate on Lord Joffe’s Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill in May 2006, the RCP reverted to opposing any change in the law after seeking the opinions of its members, a position it has held ever since. He has since become an ardent advocate for assisted suicide.

As I reported last week HPAD was set up in 2010 to push for the legalisation of assisted suicide. They have been increasingly active and now have 520 members (a figure representing about 0.25% of the country’s estimated 200,000 doctors).

HPAD’s members were almost certainly responsible for nine almost identical euthanasia motions put forward to the annual representative meeting of the British Medical Association later this month.

These motions all call for the BMA to adopt ‘a neutral position’ on ‘assisted dying’ and all bear the fingerprints of the pressure group Dignity in Dying (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society) which campaigns for the legalisation of assisted suicide for ‘mentally competent terminally ill adult patients’.

As a result on Wednesday 27 June the BMA will be debating whether it should drop its long opposition to assisted suicide and euthanasia (Item 332 on Agenda).

This move is part of a larger campaign that Dignity in Dying (DID) is running over the next month leading up to a celebrity-endorsed lobby on parliament on 4 July.

HPAD was set up under the auspices of DID and carries the latter’s logo prominently on its website.

That website informs us that DID ‘provides administrative and financial support’ to HPAD, but ‘while sharing the same vision’, the two groups are ‘intellectually independent’.

However, as HPAD is officially listed neither as a company or charity, it is not unreasonable to conclude that it is basically part of DID.

The close cooperation between the organisations is evident in that two of the members of HPAD’s steering group, Ray Tallis and Sir Terence English, are also listed amongst DID’s patrons.

DID’s current chair, Sir Graeme Catto, another retired doctor and former chairman of the General Medical Council, was a member of the discredited Falconer Commission on Assisted Dying which made proposals about who to legalise assisted suicide earlier this year.

That Commission was conceived by DID, financed by one of its Patrons, Sir Terry Pratchett, and chaired by Lord Falconer who had previously attempted to legalise assisted suicide through an amendment to the Coroners Act in 2009.

According to its website the Secular Medical Forum believes that ‘assisted dying’ (a euphemism for assisted suicide and euthanasia) with adequate safeguards for terminally ill, competent adults, should be introduced in the UK as soon as possible’.

SMF is chaired by Dr Antony Lempert, also a member of HPAD, and its board of directors includes four other doctors: Colin Brewer, Richard Rawlins, Sara Melly and Anish Shah.

SMF’s founder Michael Irwin, a retired GP and a former Medical Director of the United Nations’, was also previously head of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society (now 'Dignity in Dying') and is currently leader of the controversial pro-euthanasia group ‘Society for Old Age Rational Suicide’.

SOARS uses the same arguments as DID but has a more radical agenda, believing that assisted suicide should be available for all elderly people, whether terminally ill or not.

Irwin was struck off the medical register by the General Medical Council in 2005 for trying to help a friend kill himself. He admitted obtaining sleeping pills to help his friend die and a GMC panel found him guilty of serious professional misconduct.

SMF director Colin Brewer was also struck off the medical register in 2006 after being found guilty of serious professional misconduct by the GMC following allegations of inappropriate drug prescribing for patients with addictions.

Just how active is SMF? It is rather difficult, but the answer is probably ‘not very’.

According to its annual accounts filed at Companies House it had income in the last financial year of £1,436, spent £513 on administration and has a bank balance of £923! By contrast, DID has an annual turnover of over £1million.

SMF, HPAD, DID and SOARS constitute a pro-death quadrumvirate, led by retired doctors with a lot of time on their hands and lots of experience in medical politics.

These doctors make up a tiny minority of Britain’s doctors but they are determined, articulate and well-organised. They have rejected the principle, enshrined in the Hippocratic Oath, Declaration of Geneva and International Code of Medical Ethics, that doctors should not kill their patients.

They are also used to getting their own way.

Democracies like Britain and trade unions like the BMA are vulnerable to small groups such as these. Be warned!

I have seen this type of article so often from the Christian right that its almost embarrassing. You follow the same natural pattern, being unable to provide a decent counter argument to assisted dying (assisted suicide if you prefer) you reduce yourself to ad hominem attacks.

Just look at how you describe them... "pro-death quadrumvirate" - how rediculous

And you end with the stark warning that Democracies like Britain and trade unions like the BMA are vulnerable to small groups such as these. Be warned! - no explanation why you believe that.

You mean in the same way that they are, unfortunately, vulnerable to idiot religions imposing their outdated views upon us.

I know that many members of the general public see pain as a major reason for changing the law but the pro-euthanasia movement no longer use pain as an argument because they know that pain can be relieved or substantially alleviated in good hands.

People seek euthanasia largely for existential reasons - loss of meaning and purpose, loss of enjoyment of life, feeling a burden etc. Pain is a very minor concern in comparison. The Oregon statistics bear this out strongly.

The above article shows how the pro-euthanasia lobby works and along with one of the linked articles above explains their current strategy built around two cases, two bills, the BMA debate and a mass lobby on parliament, which will no doubt be accompanied by lots of celebrity endorsement.

I have seen two people who were dying of cancer and doped up on morphine, I am sure that as a Doctor you have seen many more Peter.

Both of the people I saw knew that their life was at its end and both had said all their goodbye's and wanted it to end because they no longer had any quality of life.

I spent a good amount of time with them and managed to talk about their death (something they were far more ok with than I was) In both cases they knew their life was over and they were just waiting in pain (despite being on high doses of morphine) and they both wanted it to be over.

In one of these cases I believe that the Doctor gave far more morphine than he should have and the person died peacefully in their sleep - all of the family were under the impression this is what happened, and not one of them was sorry it happened that way. You can call it murder if you like, but there was far more dignity in her death than there was in the other cancer victim that I knew.

Now, the real problem here is that you are using what it says in your bible to guide you. That bible was written between 1500 and 2000 years ago by men who (even if they wrote it with the best of intentions) didn't know how far our medicine would come - so there is no way that your book should play any part in the deliberations of how we treat people in this the 21st century.

Additionally, who the hell does anyone think they are to say that another person should be forced to carry on living if the person in question really doesn't want to - I am sure you'll agree there is a difference between someone who is depressed and someone who is depressed because they are in pain and terminally ill.

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Kiwi, Christian and Medical

This blog deals mainly with matters at the interface of Christianity and Medicine. But I do also diverge into other subjects - especially New Zealand, rugby, economics, developing world, politics and topics of general Christian and/or medical interest. The opinions expressed here are mine and may not necessarily reflect the views of my employer or anyone else associated with me.

About Me

I am CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, a UK-based organisation with 4,500 UK doctors and 1,000 medical students as members. The opinions expressed here however are mine, and may not necessarily reflect the views of CMF or anyone else associated with me.